


I Was Hurting Long Before we Met

by spreadyourwingsandfly



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Heartache, Minor Character Death, Other, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-14 22:45:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4582944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spreadyourwingsandfly/pseuds/spreadyourwingsandfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>''Derek Hale can look back on his life and see a lot of pain, rejection, and people leaving. All of these things overshadow the good times that he knows he had at some point. They’re more poignant, and they stain his mind with their horrific memory.<br/>The thing is, the people who left him never really meant to. Well, most of them didn’t.  That’s what hurts the most, he thinks: the fact that the ones he truly , honestly, deeply cared for were ripped from his life so suddenly. The thought of each and every one of the people who left him still cuts, destroys and kills him, a little bit at a time. They slowly, painfully drag into him, like daggers in his memory.''</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Was Hurting Long Before we Met

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by 'Turn your Face' by Little Mix.  
> I do not own the song, or Teen Wolf.

‘’In my memory, all the small things, like daggers in my mind. In my memory, while my head bleeds, the words I’ll never find... In my memory I was hurting long before we met. In my memory, there's still burning fingerprint you left...And I always meant to say to you ‘I care’.’’- Turn your Face by Little Mix  
Derek Hale can look back on his life and see a lot of pain, rejection, and people leaving. All of these things overshadow the good times that he knows he had at some point. They’re more poignant, and they stain his mind with their horrific memory.  
The thing is, the people who left him never really meant to. Well, most of them didn’t. That’s what hurts the most, he thinks: the fact that the ones he truly , honestly, deeply cared for were ripped from his life so suddenly. The thought of each and every one of the people who left him still cuts, destroys and kills him, a little bit at a time. They slowly, painfully drag into him, like daggers in his memory.  
There’s his family, that he lost in the fire. All except for Cora and Peter.  
The first is Paige. She was his first real love. The one that gave him butterflies and made his heart race and made him weak in the knees. It was the first time that he was really able to differentiate between love and lust. She taught him that love and lust could combine beautifully when with someone you truly care about.  
That all changed as quickly as it began. Now, he’s left to deal with the agonizing memory of what they had. If he hadn’t made the mistake, hadn’t bitten her, they’d still be together. He’s sure of that. He knew even back then that she was the one. As juvenile as it may seem, he knew what he wanted, even when he was only a hormonal sixteen year old falling in love for the very first time.  
Kate was next. Beautiful, confident, sadistic Kate. He’d mistaken lust for love. He guesses he always knew that. Kate was a stark contrast from Paige- hard, aggressive, dishonest. But he was seventeen and lonely and blinded by what he was so sure was love. It was infatuation a the most, and it cost him his family.  
To this day, and every day before and after, he has to live with that.  
Jennifer. Sweet, insecure, beautiful, vengeful Jennifer. He’d spent years having one night stands, hoping to feel a void that he couldn’t quite explain. It seemed like it would workout. In between the alpha pack and the murders in Beacon Hills and the darach, he needed something good in his life. Jennifer seemed like she was the sunshine in his dark, dreary world.  
Until the clouds rolled in. Then, it was more like a storm he couldn’t escape. Jennifer… Julia turned out to be the real monster. That’s rich coming from him, he realizes. But he’s not a monster. Not in the way she was, at least.  
He’ll keep telling himself that.  
He’ll keep letting that numb his pain.  
Then there was Braeden. She came into his life quickly, and changed it. For better or worse, she definitely had an effect on him. She was the first woman since Paige that made him feel something that he absolutely knew was real.  
And it scared the hell out of him. Out of both of them, really. Two strong, independent people forced to be vulnerable wasn’t easy. Add in the fact that one had fallen too many times and decided to harden themselves, and the other wasn’t willing to fall if they didn’t know they would be caught. It was a recipe for disaster, and he knew that from the day that they first met.  
Yet, he can’t bring himself to truly regret any of it. All he regrets is that he was never as open and honest about his emotions as he should have been, before it was too late.  
He doesn’t even regret all of the heartache that each of those women brought him. Because it made him grow. Because they were each wonderful in their own strikingly different ways. Because as much as it hurts, it’s taught him one thing: he has to say what he needs to, before it’s too late.  
Which is why he’s here, swallowing his pride and waiting for someone he hasn’t seen in a whole year to answer the door. It’s why he’s about to lay it all out on the line, and accept responsibility for his words and actions and, crap, actually talk to this kid.  
He’s lost so many people that he cares about, and sometimes well before he let them know what they mean to him.  
So maybe now’s the time to risk heartache, no matter how unprepared he is.  
After all- can anyone really be prepared for that?  
He’s ready now, though. To give his full attention and heart to someone that he has had feelings for for a while now. Even if he knows how heart crushing it could be.  
And if he does get hurt, he won’t bring himself to regret it.


End file.
